


folie à deux

by twosetcloud (the_cloud_whisperer)



Category: Twosetviolin
Genre: Alternate Ending, Character Death In Dream, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Halloween, Happy Ending, Horror, Lucid Dreaming, M/M, Mild Blood, Sickfic, Supernatural Elements, breddy - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-06
Updated: 2020-01-18
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:00:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22138957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_cloud_whisperer/pseuds/twosetcloud
Summary: "Once you see just how low of a place we started from, you'll understand thatdreams can come true.."Eddy's words prove prophetic in more than one way when he gets sick and Brett has to take care of him. Little do they know that more is at stake here than just Eddy's life.
Relationships: Eddy Chen/Brett Yang
Comments: 19
Kudos: 69





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by Twoset's [reaction to their first video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OfOClZ7VqE), which you should watch if you haven't already :D
> 
> This is a fictional depiction of real life people - if this is offensive to you please do not read! Please heed the warnings, both in the tags and in each chapter's notes.

"Go the fuck to sleep; you look like you're dying."

" _You_ go to sleep," Eddy retorts, the paragon of maturity at his ripe age of 26. It's difficult to sound majestic and commanding through congested sinuses and sniffling interspersed with hacking coughs. Clearly the years have caught up with him and he's going to die of pneumonia like Mahler.

"My house, my rules," Brett says without missing a beat. Eddy had stayed over well into the evening filming this week's episodes. Normally they might go out for a late night afterwards, especially considering that Halloween is tomorrow, but given his current state of health… he'll pass. He anticipates his nasal voice and inability to string two words together without coughing and sneezing will be a great hit with viewers. _Forward slash ess._

"Fine." He makes a show of stomping and shuffling petulantly across the floor to the guest room that he typically frequents on these late nights. It's not all for show—he really does feel like his legs are made of lead. Plus, the headache he's got on top of this latest bout of flu is making the path to his room feel like a dizzying, unnavigable maze. "Guess what? You're dying too. We're all dying all the time, and there's nothing anyone can do about it."

"Yes, yes," Brett says impatiently, appearing at his side to chivvy him away to bed, eager to get rid of a flu-addled Eddy as soon as possible. Secretly, Eddy reels at the touch of Brett's hand on the small of his back, pushing him forward into the bathroom, gentle but insistent.

Brett supervises him brushing his teeth, perhaps concerned that he'll tip over in a feverish frenzy and crack his head open on the marble counter. Eddy scrubs and gargles, watching him in the mirror as he digs through the medicine cabinet on the wall. _It should be illegal to be this cute,_ he thinks, noting the slight moue of displeasure that graces Brett's lips as whatever he's looking for continues to elude him, tiny grumbles and grouches as he knocks random things over in his search.

"Aha!" Brett emerges victorious from the cabinet clutching a box of Nyquil. "Here." He peels four pills out of the blister pack and hands them to Eddy. "My brother brought these back from overseas. He used to pop them like candy when he got sick; they're pretty mild. This should get you to sleep in no time."

Now that Eddy's all medicated up and tucked snugly into bed by sure hands, he does feel rather sleepy and muddled. He struggles to stay conscious, sluggish eyeballs tracking Brett's movements around the room as if he doesn’t want to miss a moment. He fusses with various petty tasks, mumbling to himself as he completes each one, likely unaware of how heartbreakingly adorable he is in the act.

"Water," he places a glass on the bedside table, "tissues," he digs a box out of the drawer, "close the closet door or monsters will get you," Eddy feels the ghost of a smile twitch his lips at Brett's teasing, "and… lights out."

Even Brett's dark silhouette, outlined in the doorway, is comforting and familiar, and Eddy manages to wrangle his besotted tongue into intelligible speech before his consciousness fades. "I should get sick more often just to find out how much you love me."

He can _hear_ Brett rolling his eyes. "And that's the Nyquil talking, which means you should be sleeping. Sweet dreams!"

He bids Eddy goodnight and shuts the door, leaving him to drift off in peace.

* * *

The first thing Eddy notices is that he can breathe. Through both nostrils, clean and clear, refreshing air without a fit of coarse coughing every time he inhales. _You really don’t realize what you take for granted until it's gone,_ he thinks.

The second thing he notices is that he’s in the piano room at home, sitting in his chair at the table where they always film. Sheet music lies scattered across its surface. His phone rests faceup on top: the screen reads 11:56 PM, Oct 30, 2019.

The third thing he notices is that Brett's standing in front of him, violin in hand, frowning down at his apathetic posture. "Bro, we're rehearsing now, yeah? Go get your violin."

For some reason, Eddy's mind is currently a whirlwind of confused, blank fog. _What's going on? Why don’t I remember anything leading up to this moment?_ Despite the oddness of the situation, Brett's presence reassures him. If Brett knows what they're doing, then he can figure out the rest as they go.

He starts to get up out of his chair, then stops short as a bruising cough rises from his lungs, forcing him to double over, arms braced on the table. The fit is so intense and relentless that he almost feels like vomiting, an unpleasant retching wave crawling up his throat. With a growing sensation that something is completely not right, he watches thin, pink droplets spray onto the white paper, their scattered descent like the gala of cherry blossoms in spring. This is nothing so benign, though. Another paroxysm strikes him, and this time the petals bloom brighter, redder, bloodier.

"Eddy, what the—… are you…?" Brett's interrupted concerns fall like imperfect cadences on his ears, querying and frantic, but cut off right away by a development still more eerie and inexplicable.

Before their eyes, the bloody sputum from Eddy's coughing morphs and twists on the page, the sanguine stain shaping itself into legible letters: an unholy message from supernatural sources unseen.

_I want to play a little game_

_The rules are simple_

_You play twenty-four hours nonstop or he dies_

"What the fuck…" Brett looks as pale as Eddy feels right now, staring down at the paper in shock. "Is this some kind of joke?"

"Why're you asking me, do I look like I would joke around with my own life?" Eddy snipes back, the tension making his words hard and sharp.

Their mysterious correspondent isn't finished. The page shifts again, a damning new message coming to light.

_No repeats, no pauses, no sheet music, and no wrong notes_

_Your time starts now_

Eddy's phone reads 11:59 PM. Just as 12:00 AM blinks into being, he feels it.

"Brett…" He manages to get as far as the other's name before choking on his breath, the coughing fits redoubled.

"Eddy!" He rushes towards him, carelessly setting his violin down on the table, reaching out for his friend, but Eddy waves him away. In the back of his mind, he still has the faculties to feel tickled at how blasé Brett is, leaving his instrument within blood-spraying range when normally he's so fastidious about keeping it clean. All for the love of Eddy, right?

"Play something already, just do it," he chokes out. His whole torso aches from these racking coughs; he'd do anything it takes to stop them, even if that involves obeying some kind of malignant entity's demented conditions. "Come on, Brett!"

He snatches up his violin again, reflexes bringing the bow to the strings like clockwork, but there, he hesitates once more.

"Just play anything," Eddy urges. He collapses back down to his seat. A deep ache takes root in his chest, far beneath the superficial layers of sinew and tendon. Each breath he takes induces a stabbing pain that feels like ghost claws digging into his heart. Every now and then, another cough rubs his throat raw, peppering the table with a fresh mist of blood. "Please, Brett…"

The lingering drawl of Tchaikovsky's opening phrase fills the room, and he looks up at Brett, his face scrunched in concentration, mustering all the talent and technique he possesses to pull those dulcet notes from the strings. Eddy breathes normally again.

"Eddy, what's going on?? Tell me you're okay, please, _please—"_

"I'm okay," he says automatically. "Everything's okay, don’t worry."

"Are you kidding me, you're… you were coughing up your lungs like you were about to die, how is that _okay?!"_

Eddy figures that someone needs to see the humor in this situation, else Brett is going to be all doom and gloom for the foreseeable future, and that doesn’t go well with Tchaikovsky. "Do you think it's my left lung that's being coughed up?"

"??"

…yeah, Brett's clearly not in the right headspace to get the reference; Eddy can see it in the way his vibrato is too narrow, fingers about to vibrate off the strings, in the way his bow bounces too spastically, just on the verge of shaking.

"Look, don’t worry. Tchaik lasts what, 30, 35 minutes? You've got this; you _know_ this piece better than anyone. Well, not _anyone,_ " he amends, "but I'm serious, you'll be fine. _I'll_ be fine; see, I'm already better, not coughing anymore. It's like I'm… revived by the power of love or something…" He trails off awkwardly, not sure where he's going with that thought.

"What the fuck, Eddy," Brett mutters under his breath, but his playing already sounds more relaxed now that Eddy is in no immediate danger of dying.

He closes his eyes and leans back in the chair, taking in the music and trying to clear his mind of all anxiety. He drifts back to the original dilemma: what's going on? How did they get here? Upon consulting his phone, he confirms that it's still the same night (or early morning, he supposes), but they were at Brett's house just now getting ready for bed. Now they're miles away, and Brett seems to have no recollection of them being at his house before this. _Our timelines are shifted, and it doesn’t make sense._

He puzzles it over for long moments. They're in a holding pattern for now, but as long as they focus and stay calm, it will be alright. Hopefully, anyways; it's not like Eddy has any experience with such fantastical situations as this.

There is one possibility that explains everything, he intuits in a single lightning instant of revelation.

"This is a dream."

It makes sense: they're in a completely different place, the circumstances of which can't be explained by any laws of physics; they're stuck in some kind of messed-up scenario controlled by an invisible malevolent villain; even the sporadic coughing— _I was sick when I went to bed, I probably kicked the covers off or there's a spider crawling down my throat in real life, and it's making my cough worse._

Cheered by the prospect of a rational explanation, he notices that Brett is staring at him, puzzled, even as he continues to play. "It's a dream," he repeats. "We were there, but now we're here. And, ghosts don’t exist in real life. So in conclusion… there's nothing to worry about."

Brett blinks, uncomprehending. "Bro, what are you talking about? We've been here all night filming, or have you forgotten? This is fucking real, or do you need to start coughing up blood again to let that sink in?"

Hm. In hindsight, Eddy did a rather poor job of explaining why he thinks this is a dream, but as he considers all aspects of the situation, he concludes that it doesn’t matter either way.

 _Okay, let's be methodical about this. Make a list. Let organization be your guide_. He rummages around the table for some clean sheet music to write on.

Assumptions:

  1. This is a dream.
  2. This is my dream alone. Brett doesn’t realize this is a dream because he isn't the real Brett; he's my mind Brett.
  3. Essentially, Brett is a figment of my dream imagination and his knowledge and experiences are limited to what I myself know and believe.
  4. I can control the dream within certain limits set by my subconscious.



After all, dream worlds don’t reflect the real world. If Eddy so chooses, he can make it so that they don’t have to eat, sleep, go to the bathroom, rest, or do any of the usual activities of living. Brett won't feel any pain or exhaustion until the time is up, and once they've fulfilled the parameters dictated by Eddy's bizarre psychic escape room, he can wake up and be done with this.

 _If I know that this is my dream, then can't I just end it?_ He concentrates as hard as he can on waking up. No more coughing up blood, no more Brett being forced to play Tchaikovsky, no more nerve-wracking life-or-death situations. But no matter how hard he stretches his imagination, trying to pull them out of the present and back to their comfortable beds where they must be sleeping in real life, it's futile. _What's the point of lucid dreaming if you can't even control when your dream ends?_ Eddy complains. _This isn't fun._

He resigns himself to thinking up twenty-four hours' worth of repertoire, cursing his subconscious for being so stubborn. He has to admit, though, he's rather impressed with his own mind for coming up with such an extravagant scenario, and for locking Brett in with him. _Look on the bright side, Eddy. This is twenty-four hours of prime time to look beneath the tip of the iceberg and examine all your repressed thoughts and feelings brought to light. Merry Christmas._

* * *

The first hurdle comes sooner than he expected, about five minutes into the concerto. He'd forgotten to address what would happen during orchestral tutti sections. Brett had started at the beginning of the violin solo and naturally stopped playing when the full orchestra would have come in. He hesitates in the ringing silence. "Do I just keep playing?"

"Hang on." Inspired, Eddy holds up a hand, interrupting him. "Just wait, don’t play."

"But if I don’t play, you'll…"

 _Yeah, that's kind of the point,_ Eddy thinks, keeping his eyes on the stopwatch on his phone. As it reaches the thirty-second mark, he feels that unpleasant tickling sensation unfurling itself in his chest wall, growing and invading his lungs until he has to catch his breath, an echo of his initial coughing fits. He flaps a hand at Brett, gesturing for him to continue; two seconds later, he skips to the next solo entrance, bypassing the orchestral part entirely. Eddy relaxes.

"Don’t do that to me again," Brett hisses, the epitome of righteous fury, very much clashing with the sweet strains of Tchaikovsky's lyrical melody from his violin.

"I didn’t know that was going to happen, either," Eddy says defensively. He clears his throat; that wasn’t too bad. "The only way to find out was to try and see what happens. It's called testing a hypothesis, in case you didn’t pay attention in school."

"No, it's called 'you're an idiot.'"

"Very clever." At least they've found out that thirty seconds is about how long Brett can go without playing before Eddy starts actively dying again. _That's fair_ , Eddy concedes; it's pretty much the upper limit of how long pauses between movements of a symphony can conceivably stretch. After that, the silence starts getting awkward, everyone having exhausted their quota of coughing between movements. Eddy kind of sympathizes with those chronic concert-coughers now, ironically.

"Just skip all the orchestral tutti from now on; it's too hard to replicate by yourself with all the moving lines and random solos in the winds." That cuts out a few minutes from the overall play time, unfortunately, which means he needs to have more repertoire at the ready.

Okay. Back to the drawing board.

* * *

Eddy's already observed that mind!Brett is a lot less stoic and stable than real!Brett. He supposes this is a realistic imagining of how Brett would be if this were happening in real life, but it's kind of weird. Is this just Eddy's subsumed protectiveness projecting itself onto the dream version of Brett, longing for the emotional intimacy that they can't attain in real life?

He puts a hard stop to that line of thought. No matter what inside jokes he's got running with himself about taking this time to sort through buried feelings, he really does need to plan ahead for the next few minutes, at least. Eddy devotes himself to writing out what pieces to play next, optimizing the order while considering factors like ease of playing, variety of tempo markings, level of technicality, musical periods, his own familiarity with the pieces. He mainly sticks to pieces that they've both practiced before, meanwhile thanking his lucky stars for their mutual habit of eschewing sheet music and memorizing as much as possible.

Brett falters a little during one of the more energetic runs towards the second half of the first movement, and Eddy would know it even if he hadn't heard the bow skittering along the strings like a spooked tarantula. He does his best to strangle his cough into silence, knowing that Brett's eyes are trained on him, looking for any sign of discomfort, fretting, worrying about his well-being. It's rather sweet, but counterproductive.

"Don’t second-guess yourself, Brett. Just play like no one's watching."

"Not helping," Brett grumbles. " _You're_ obviously watching."

"It's just me." He spreads his arms wide, nonchalantly demonstrating the insignificance of his presence. No cameras, no jury, no panel or audience of esteemed peers and critics, just… Eddy.

"Oh yeah, remember: _'Music is a visible thing. Close your eyes and you will see.'_ Or at least, you _won't_ have to see me anymore."

It works. Even as Brett closes his eyes, the corner of his mouth twitches, then his lips in their graceful entirety, his slight laughter compressing his cheek against the chinrest as he leans into it, and _yes,_ that's the mood you play Tchaikovsky in: triumphant and joyful, pleased with the notion of being alive and playing music that you love. _That's right._ Eyes closed, swaying with the music, Brett looks nothing short of precious, perfect. 

Goddamn—of all the problems Eddy had expected to encounter in this life-or-death situation, combing through his fraught emotional landscape is proving to be the most difficult.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Folie à deux_ : a psychiatric syndrome in which symptoms of a delusional belief and sometimes hallucinations are transmitted from one individual to another.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for character death within a dream (nongraphic).
> 
> Frank is Brett's brother (I think...?) and appeared in a couple of TwoSet's early vlogs. What a guy, just... wow. Sometimes I wonder how two siblings can be so different, but then I thought of myself and my sister, so it's not so strange :)

During the second movement, where the melody is mild enough for them to hear themselves think, he starts to tell Brett his plans for what happens next. The concert order that he's sketched out accounts for about twelve hours' worth of playing time, though that might vary based on Brett's interpretation. He'll have to come up with the rest as they go, but this should do for now.

"Just trust me," he says with more confidence than he feels. "I know your capabilities as well as you do; I know what you can and can't play. Don’t think about anything but the music. If you forget a line, I'll remind you. If you still can't remember, we can just skip it. No sweat."

Brett nods, wholly absorbed in playing just as he should be. He looks much more relaxed, having a game plan to act upon. After the Tchaikovsky is finished, they'll move on to Paganini's Caprice No. 24, then the Brahms violin concerto, Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso by Saint-Saëns, and then, well… not wanting to distract Brett, he doesn’t reveal too much of the program ahead of time, instead letting him focus on the most immediate piece in line.

"No repeats, no pauses, no sheet music, and no wrong notes." Eddy muses upon the instructions from their invisible, bloodthirsty friend, the gruesome inscription long since faded from white sheets of paper. "Based on that alone, technically, you could play all the right notes, but with poor interpretation and musicality, and it would still count."

Brett gives him a half-hearted glare, unimpressed with the loophole he's discovered.

"Plus, the rules didn’t say that you have to play classical music. You could play pop music, or even meme music, and it would count."

"Yeah, no. I'm not taking any chances with you," Brett snipes. He’d had forgotten, if only for a moment, how touchy mind!Brett is about not messing around. Alright then, straight talk only.

* * *

Time seems to move so slowly. Behind Eddy, the blinds don’t lighten even as the hours pass and his phone says it should be morning by now. It stays dark outside, the indoor air stale with night's crushing mood, more evidence that none of this can possibly be real, as if the world outside this room doesn’t exist.

He doubts that the passage of time in this dream is equivalent to real life. _It's 12:00 PM; surely the Nyquil couldn’t keep me out for twelve hours?_ Thinking about it, that's probably what's led to this insane fever dream in the first place. This is all just one long medication-induced trip, and when he wakes up, he is going to rip into Brett for giving him four entire pills to take before bed. The legendary Frank Yang is an absolute unit—it's not surprising that he'd need that many to knock him out. Eddy Chen? Much more of a lightweight.

He starts making more mistakes around 1:00 PM, and Eddy feels like there's a beehive thrumming in the back of his throat, trying to escape in the form of bloody coughing, but he crams it back down as hard as he can. Of course Brett notices, and the guilty expression settling onto his features nags at Eddy's heart, somehow more painful than the pins and needles digging into him, making him catch his breath. 

"Dude, sit down, you’re dead on your feet." He tries to draw attention away from himself, but it's true—Brett has been standing for thirteen hours, and Eddy supposes his imaginative dream mind is at least trying to prioritize realism in details. If this were happening in real life, Brett would have collapsed hours ago. At Eddy's command, he fumbles his way over to the leather couch, still playing, and folds himself onto it, sinking into its soft give and belying how exhausted he really was.

"Will it help if I talk to you?" Eddy hasn't been talking much for the first half of their twenty-four hours, too busy consulting his memory for every scrap of violin repertoire they've ever played. "Or will it just be distracting?"

He shrugs, too focused on the music to answer, which Eddy takes for a nonchalant go-ahead.

"Thank god we're violinists," he says. "If we were violists, I'd be dead by now. I don’t know that they have even twelve hours' worth of solo repertoire."

That gets him half a wry snort, a good sign. _Alright, shouldn't be a problem. Just ramble nonstop for the next eleven hours, that's basically all we do in our videos anyways_.

He flits from thought to thought, remembering random moments from the past, their conservatory and high school days together, their time spent conceiving TwoSet Violin, the madness of its initial creation, a pipe dream that no one believed would take off at first. What he envisions for the future, expanding their vision, their team, taking advantage of the global classical music quasi-revival that they seem to have sparked unawares. It's a little much when he stops and thinks about it, but looking back at Brett, his hemispheres shrink, and he remembers where it all started: with just the two of them.

Now it's still just the two of them, trapped here in a dream, but together nonetheless, and that's all that matters.

* * *

"Come here."

Brett angles a querying eyebrow at him. Eddy's phone reads 3:32 PM. They're in the first movement of the Sibelius concerto, and Eddy's a little miffed that it doesn’t sound as well put together as it had when he'd been practicing it recently. Inconsistency in performance is normal, though, even though he's not technically performing for anyone but himself in this moment.

"Why?"

"I'm not going to eat you. Come _here."_

He approaches the table warily, still playing. "What are you doing?"

"Hold out your left hand. Well, after this bit, then hold out your hand."

"But—"

"Just for thirty seconds," he urges. "But you're getting major cramps in your left hand, I can hear it in your playing. Let me help you."

"Fine."

He finishes the phrase, the orchestral reentrance implied in the silence. For the first time in hours, he puts his violin down on the table and sticks his left hand out like a robot. Eddy pulls him down so that they're level. His fingers are curled in the same position they normally occupy on the fingerboard, too stiff to unfurl and relax properly. Eddy rubs the pad of each finger gently, restoring circulation to the tips, then takes each finger and bends it towards the back of his hand, one by one, then all at once, his hand describing a mild arc that curves through to his wrist. Brett lets him do it all for him, hand passively limp in his grasp.

It's not something they haven't done for each other before in the context of busking, or for their Kickstarter when they'd played for five days straight on the streets, and before shows. However, it's never been quite so emotionally charged. He interlaces his fingers with Brett's own, no longer doing much in the way of massage, instead just holding on, their breaths heavy in the absence of music.

"Hang in there," he urges, the words ringing false and unstable on his ears, falling far short of the gravity of their current situation. "I believe in you."

The words he wants to say tickle the tip of his tongue, but Brett is already wrenching his hand away, too keen to get back to playing before Eddy gets in trouble again. _Maybe later, after this is all over,_ he thinks. _Before I wake up, so I can pretend he'll actually hear me._

* * *

On his feet again, pacing mildly as he plays, and Eddy notices him wince in pain. He frowns, concerned, as Brett awkwardly extends his fingers, the pads seeming to stick to the strings more than usual. He’s bleeding, Eddy realizes, blood smearing the fingerboard and congealing there like goo.

“Brett…?”

"It's okay," he grits out, fending off any queries. "It's just my first and second fingers that are split. I'll use my third and fourth more. It's about time I practiced my fourth finger vibrato anyways, after we finish up Bach here."

Oh no. _Oh no._ Black humor as a coping mechanism? The situation must be really dire. He's not the kind to give up hope until the very end. Sure enough, Eddy catches tears leaking from the corner of Brett's eyes as he accidentally places his injured fingers back on the strings, salt in his wounds.

"Take a break—thirty seconds, let me find something to wrap your fingers up." He stares futilely around the room; he doesn’t think he's stocked any bandages in here or bandage substitutes.

Brett shakes his head. "No time, no time."

"We still have an hour to go."

"I'll deal with it!"

He shunts out an exasperated sigh. _Why does you have to be like this, especially when it comes to your own well-being…?_

There _is_ a solution to this predicament; he just has to get Brett to agree to it. The chances of that happening are low, though, for the aforementioned reasons.

"Brett, just stop. Stop playing. I'll die, but this is a dream, so I'll just wake up." It's like in _Inception:_ if you die in a dream, you don’t go to some kind of dream afterlife—you just wake up. "It'll be fine."

"No. It's not fine." His voice is ice-cold, leaving no room for doubt. "If you die, you die, and I'm not living long without you."

He's approaching the end of the gavotte in the third partita. Eddy's mind automatically jumps back on track to think of what he's scheduled next, even while another part of his mind implodes at the severity of Brett's words.

But those aren't his words, Eddy reminds himself. They are Eddy's own thoughts regurgitated back to him through the medium of mind!Brett.

"Why's that?" he asks. He's curious to see what other inklings the innards of his mind might project onto the hapless object of his interest.

"It's not TwoSet without you, is it? I'm not going to let you down. You are not allowed to die before me."

 _Well shit._ In the midst of this revelation, Eddy registers the end of the gavotte in octaves. _Crap, I haven't given him instructions for the next one yet._

"Uh, the minuet next, you've played it before, haven't you?"

"Nah." He pauses, bow at his side. "I mean, I have, but I'm not playing it now. I'm done with Bach."

Eddy has to agree: this level of instability while playing solo Bach is not the best combination. He casts about in his meticulously scrawled program, searching for an alternative, but Brett raises his bow, cutting him off.

"Listen," is all he says, as he begins anew.

A lone melody, soaring, singing. His eyes are closed, but his heart is open, and Eddy can't look away. It's simple, unadorned, unpretentious, yet unequivocally replete with soulfulness and yearning. Throughout the years that they've played together, scads of viewers have commented on Brett's unemotive facial expressions, but gods, anyone with _ears_ can hear that his passion plays out entirely in his music.

Long, sweeping bowstrokes, even and sustained in his dedication, and they bring him to the next entrance, where Eddy would come in if he were playing. This is _their_ song, and his fingers itch, left hand going to his right forearm instinctively, longing for his fingerboard, for that unity that they can only achieve through duets. He watches, impossibly fond, as Brett reaches the part where their lines overlap, question and answer, a whispered conversation that swells and sustains itself until it is a chain of love letters to each other in music, sonorous and brilliant. He bridges the gaps in their lines seamlessly, transitioning from one part to the next as if he's speaking for Eddy, as if they are one entity.

They are, and they aren't. They are TwoSet Violin, and they are Brett and Eddy. It is inconceivable to think of one existing without the other.

They're playing simultaneously now, or they would be. At once somber and exultant, the piece is a study in the push and pull, ebb and tide of their relationship. Eddy can't explain it, but he feels as if their souls are twined together, inseparable. They cascade toward the end together, their perfect harmony resilient and ringing, and finally, _finally_ , Brett blinks his eyes open, having played both parts of the BAE song by himself for Eddy.

"Do you understand?"

Unbidden, the memory of their first meeting over a decade ago in math class, Brett trying to teach him some pointlessly complicated theorem that had no business being in a high school textbook. _"Do you understand?"_

Back then, it had seemed so important to appear confident and intelligent in front of the older boy, so he'd lied and said yes, even though he didn’t get it. Here, though, he has no doubt as to what Brett means.

"I do, but I'd still like to hear you say it."

.

.

.

"I lo—"

.

His declaration is cut off by a sharp twang: a string has broken. They stare in horror as the G string's limp ends dangle from the violin, unplayable. _Shit._

Brett swears as the D string follows suit, its lifespan abruptly truncated. This isn't good. Eddy hadn't accounted for strings breaking, and he doesn’t think he has any extra strings lying around to use.

A sordid _plink_ as the A string gives up the ghost in quick succession. They have one hour and one string remaining: "E for Eddy," he says, compulsively joking.

"This isn't funny—how am I supposed to play with one string?" Eddy scans the room: his own violin is nowhere to be seen. _Damn it…_ Okay, stay calm. They can work around this. Paganini famously played on one string and lived to tell the tale, right? Maybe he can improvise something quick, "Air on the E string”? He lifts his bow to the string (singular, gods, it looks so wrong), hesitating, unsure, lost as he was in the very beginning. That pause, that suspended moment, is the breath before catastrophe.

With a dull _thunk_ , the bridge of his violin collapses, flattening itself under the unsupported E string before slipping off altogether and falling to the floor.

.

_There goes my heart._

.

Eddy manages to stand, bracing himself on the table and taking one step towards Brett, before he doubles over and collapses. This is the end. Brett knows it too, rushing to him, broken violin cast aside. "Eddy!"

"It's okay," he rasps, forcing himself to smile through the wet coughs that oscillate through his throat, the corrosive taste of iron heavy on his tongue. "It's okay. I'll see you… when we wake up."

"Eddy, _please, you can't do this—"_ Brett's nearly incoherent with panic, shaking his shoulders even as his body slumps to the floor, too weak to sustain himself. "Eddy, come on! You can't… you can't die—"

He rolls Eddy over to lie on his side, keeping him from choking, but that won't save him. His heart is broken, frantic palpitations growing weaker as the minutes stretch longer and longer, each second that passes making it harder for him to draw breath. He's just strong enough to reach a hand up behind Brett's shoulder, and he understands, gathering Eddy close to him, supporting him in his arms. He leans over and softly steals a kiss, lips almost too weak to close around Brett's.

It is both bliss and agony to see Brett's face when they disengage, lips still faintly parted, stunned into silence. Eddy smooths over his bottom lip with one shaking thumb, curving his mouth into a weak imitation of a smile, drawing the backs of his fingers up the arc of his jaw and his cheek, wanting so much more than what they have time for. That's alright, though. Eddy has said what he wanted to say with that one kiss.

His vision starts to fade, Brett's expression lingering in his mind's eye, contorted with dread and despair. He seems to be saying something, but Eddy’s hearing is disappearing too, words falling on his ears like muted rumbles, until he is alone in darkness and silence. All he can sense is a warm hand clutching his tightly, fearing to let go, and then even that is gone, his whole body numb and unfeeling. He slips away, releasing his last, bloodstained breath and waiting to see Brett on the other side.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! The last two chapters will be separate endings. The first one is the happy ending :) and the second one is the dark ending :O Don't worry, they will be clearly labeled as such, and it's totally fine if you only want to read the happy ending! The dark one was really fun to write though, and kind of a fun twist at the end, there, so maybe you'll like it :)


	3. Happy Ending

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Darling, you're my _beau soir_."

He jolts awake, breathing hard in the darkened room. Checking his phone by reflex, he notes that it's 4:33 AM, still a few minutes shy of sunrise. Through the gap in the blinds, the sky outside is greying. _I had a weird dream…_

Eddy closes his eyes, trying to summon hazy memories from the oblivion of sleep. Everything's jumbled. Brett was there, and he thinks they might have argued? He notices that half the blankets have slipped off the bed onto the floor; no wonder he's freezing, on top of being sick.

He drinks the entire glass of water on the night table but finds himself still thirsty, the fever making him parched. The door creaks as he ventures to the kitchen for a refill. The refrigerator hums, and he staidly ignores the obnoxious voice of Brett inside his head asking him what pitch it is. Somehow, no matter where Brett is at any given moment, Eddy always feels peripherally aware of him, thoughts resting with him even while concentrating on unrelated things. It's the inevitable result of spending so much time together over the years, but Eddy doesn’t exactly dislike this arrangement.

It's good to be with Brett, he thinks, sipping his water, unable to muster a more coherent thought process at the moment. Most things in life are uncertain: the weather, their audience, the sustainability of their current wave of popularity, their income… They don’t exactly have a ten-year plan, but Eddy thinks that as long as he has Brett with him to face the future together, it won't be so terrifying. 

_What's with these deep thoughts now?_ Eddy wonders, irked with himself for waxing philosophical at the most inconvenient hour. He should get back to sleep.

The door to Brett's room is slightly ajar, and he passes by, unwittingly listening. It sounds like Brett is… crying? He hesitates. What's the etiquette for entering your best friend's room at a quarter to five in the morning because you think he's crying in his sleep?

"Uh, Brett?" He knocks on the doorframe, but no response. Okay then.

He pushes the door open, revealing Brett's sleeping form in bed, curled tightly on his side. Eddy flicks on the light switch, and his heart breaks a little as he registers Brett's expression contorted in pain, shallow, rapid breaths confirming that yes, he's crying in his sleep, and no one should have to suffer through that. He shakes his friend awake as gently as he can.

For a few seconds, Brett stares up at him, dazed and stuporous from having been pulled so abruptly from sleep. All of a sudden, he sits up rapidly, almost smacking Eddy in the face as he sits on the edge of the bed.

"Eddy…"

"Bad dream?"

Brett scrunches his eyes shut, one hand over his mouth stifling shaky sobs. He nods, hunched over his lap.

"You wanna tell me about it?"

He lies back down, gathering the blankets over his head to hide his face. They pull taut like a tent, hampered by Eddy's weight, and presently Brett reemerges, still covering his eyes with one arm. His voice is very small when he speaks.

"You died."

Oh.

"It was so real. We were over at your place, we were going to film, and you were looking at me all confused…" Once the stream of words starts, it's like he can't stop. "And then you started coughing up blood like you were about to die, and I panicked. It was super creepy, like, like this game architect was sending messages through your blood, it was so freaky…"

Eddy has the beginnings of a very improbable suspicion. There's no way this could happen, but it's too much of a coincidence to be otherwise. "What did they say?"

"Mm…" Brett uncovers his face, looking up at the ceiling as if the words will be written there. He casts around blindly on the bedside table, his glasses just beyond reach, and Eddy leans over to hand them to him.

"It was… so creepy. It was like our stupid first video." He squirms up into a sitting position to put his glasses on, finally looking at Eddy clearly. "'I want to play a little game. You play for twenty-four hours or he dies. No repeats, no pauses—'"

"'—no sheet music, and no wrong notes.'" Eddy finishes his sentence. "Bro. We had the same dream."

Cue various noises of disbelief from Brett. "But… how is that… that can't be real, that's not freaking possible—"

"I don’t know how it happened, but it has to be," Eddy says firmly. This is so fucking weird. "I can tell you what happened in the rest of your dream. You started by playing Tchaikovsky, and you were a total mess, I swear. If that were your Tchaik drop, we would lose all two million subscribers immediately—" "Oh ha _ha_ " — "And then you eventually got your shit together and ironed it out, and by that time, I figured out that it was all a dream, but you were still flipping out because you thought it was real—"

"Okay, okay," Brett raises a hand to cut him off. "You don’t have to go through the whole thing; it's obvious that even when I'm asleep, I'm stupid and I can't tell reality from dreams."

Eddy lapses into an embarrassed silence, staring down at the covers. He thinks about bringing up the accidental Nyquil overdose but decides it's better not to crush Brett's self-esteem even more. Besides, he feels a lot better now, much less stuffy, and his headache is all but gone, even if he still feels a little feverish and cold.

"What're you looking at," Brett asks tiredly.

Eddy hadn't been looking at anything in particular, but rather spacing out and thinking about their shared dream. "I was just remembering what it was like to die. It was kind of like falling asleep, but painful." He touches the place where it felt like he was being stabbed in the heart, a twisted knife digging deep inside. He frowns over at Brett, the memories washing over him. Even though he knew they were dreaming, it had felt so real and unequivocal—their emotions running wild, adrenaline spiking high in the moment.

Now, with the silver clouds outside promising to lighten to optimistic gold in the span of a few breaths, he wonders if they can be as truthful as they were under cold fluorescent lights and a malevolent presence threatening life and loss.

"Did you…um."

Brett turns questioning eyes to him, and he almost chickens out. No, this is too important not to clear up right here, right now.

"Did you mean everything that you said there at the end?"

"What did I say?" Brett counters, not admitting to anything.

"You said…" Oh gods, this is not how they are supposed to be, evasive, closed off. Their hearts have always been open to each other; there's never been anything they couldn’t talk about, until this. Eddy throws all caution to the wind, praying that Brett will meet him halfway like he always does. He rests one hand on the blankets over Brett's knee, their intimacy quiet and pervasive, vulnerable.

"You said you couldn’t live without me, and that you would never give up on me, and… and that you loved me. And then I kissed you, before I died."

He focuses on things he can sense, the warm knobbly jut of Brett's knee under the covers, fitting comfortably into his palm, the golden tinge of dawn through the curtains, his heart beating in his ears, almost drowning out Brett's next words.

"Yes."

It takes Eddy a moment to comprehend. "Yes…?"

"Yes, I meant it." He still looks guarded, and it occurs to Eddy that Brett's waiting on him to respond.

He drifts back to his sleep-drunk musings earlier this morning in the kitchen, alone with a glass of water and his thoughts. He shifts, his hand slipping over Brett's where it rests in his lap, their congruence delightful and electric. They both lean forward at the same time, hands entwined, hearts aligned as their paths have been for so long, as it was meant to be. _Brett…_

Thank god Eddy's instincts reign him in at the last moment. Brett looks as supremely offended as can be expected with Eddy's hand covering his mouth just before what would have been a very sweet but _also very contagious_ kiss.

"No no nonono, I'm still sick, and I don’t want you to get sick too."

"Don’t care," Brett mutters. He tries to bat away Eddy's hand and apprehend him for another attempt at a kiss, but Eddy is too quick and catches both his hands, holding him at arm's length. "Just let me—"

The ensuing tussle results in Eddy firmly pinning a recalcitrant Brett down, one hand on his chest, capturing his left hand in his own, the one split open and bleeding from too much playing in their dream. He winces as he realizes that Brett actually experienced that pain, senseless strings digging into his skin, pleasure become torment. He lifts that lovely hand to his mouth, and those four blessedly whole, unbroken fingertips rest against his lips in their first kiss. They follow the natural curve of Eddy's mouth as if they were made to fit there.

"Darling, you're my _beau soir,"_ he says, meaning it unironically this time.

"It's morning already," Brett points out.

"Doesn’t matter." Eddy shifts his focus to the rest of Brett's hand, kissing each individual knuckle, the back of his hand, his tender wrist. "Say it."

Brett heaves a deep sigh but acquiesces. "You're my _clair de lune."_

The sun rises amid a moonless sky, but they two remain curled under tangled covers, rediscovering the stars in each other's depthless eyes, heartstrings taut with the flow of unconditional love and devotion.

_fin_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IF you want to read the alternate dark ending, click to the next chapter! It's totally optional, but trippy af and honestly I liked it better than the happy ending XD


	4. Dark Ending

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "The bridge is like the heart of the violin." - _I Hear You (2019)_
> 
> _All lives end. All hearts are broken. Caring is not an advantage, Brett._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for blood, character death.

**BRETT**

_This can't be happening._

_He cradles Eddy's limp body in his arms, a litany of nearly unintelligible murmurs under his breath. "No,_ no, _Eddy don’t you dare die on me, you're not, you can't—"_

_Despite his desperate entreaties, Eddy remains unresponsive, the pulse in his neck under Brett's left-hand fingers weakening by the second. "No…" His fingers slide awry, their bloodied tips slippery and capricious, and when he searches for that pulsation again, it is gone._

_"Eddy!"_

He opens his eyes; he's in bed, at home, no terrors of the night to stalk him in his waking hours as night turns to dawn. A quiet knocking sounds outside his room.

"Brett?"

The door eases open, and he stares mutely at Eddy in real life, alive and well.

"You sounded like you were having a bad dream."

He nods and sits up in bed; there's no point trying to sleep again after a dream like that. He wonders how much Eddy heard and what he thinks of Brett crying his name in those last moments of fearful agony. Of all the dreams to have when Eddy's staying the night…

"Tell me about it?" Eddy's voice is always a gentle susurrus of warmth and invitation, relaxing and indolent.

"Mm… you died." He's stupidly proud that his voice only cracks a little, totally attributable to just having woken up and not because he's still severely shaken at the thought of Eddy's death. He gestures for Eddy to stop hovering in the doorway and come in.

The light flicks on, and Eddy approaches slowly as if not to spook him, not knowing that nothing would make Brett feel more at ease right now than his presence and not-dead state of being. He's just reached the foot of the bed when there's a cracking sound, and he winces, leaning down to pick something up. It's a violin bridge, a deep splinter running down its middle.

Brett doesn’t keep random bridges just lying around his room. He stretches out a hand, and Eddy places the bridge in his palm. It's _his_ violin's bridge, irreparably shattered.

_There goes your heart._

He notices, both with a sense of doom and a sense of rightness, that the pads of his left-hand fingers are cracked and bleeding, his whole hand shaking as his fingers curl around the broken bridge.

"What the fuck…" This is… impossible. He looks up at Eddy, seeming to think he'll find an explanation there, only to follow Eddy's gaze to the bedside table, where his violin lies, out of its case, missing its bridge, strings broken.

"Eddy…?"

"What happened in your dream?" He's closer now, sitting down on the edge of the bed, just an arm's length away.

"You died," he repeats. "You… I had to play for twenty-four hours to keep you alive, but my strings broke, and you died, I _couldn’t save you—"_

He raises a shaking hand to his eyes, the same bloodstained one that last felt Eddy's fading pulse, and there must be blood and tears mixing on his face. "Eddy, I don’t know what's happening, it was a dream, but it was _so real—"_

"Shhh," Eddy bids him, pulling tissues from the box next to his bed. "It's okay, you're alright." He dries Brett's tears, his bloody fingers, cupping his face in one warm hand. Too warm; he remembers that Eddy's still sick and immediately feels guilty for waking him.

"But, it was _real,"_ he persists, unable to let go of this train of thought. The violin bridge, the strings, blood on his hands, how else does any of this make sense??

"How could it be real?" Eddy asks, serenity personified. "Look, I'm here, I'm not dead."

He lays the back of his hand on Brett's forehead, perhaps wondering if he's caught the flu as well. Brett closes his eyes against the unbearable intimacy of that simple motion. It's all sorts of heartwarming and soothing until Eddy starts coughing, a horrific, wet, productive sound that Brett is all too familiar with.

The tissue, when Eddy moves it away from his mouth, is stained pink. Eddy's blood mixes with Brett's, a damning pact that makes his veins run cold. _It can't be…_

He throws it aside, rushing to hug Brett tightly to his chest even as he breaks out into a cold sweat and renewed tremors. "Shhh, it's okay, Brett, it's okay… it's not real."

Brett slumps into his embrace, too worn out from fearing the worst to resist. "Eddy… I'm sorry. I'm sorry I couldn’t save you…"

"It's okay, Brett." A comforting hand rubbing circles on his back, and he relaxes against Eddy. "I'm not the one who has to die."

A sharp, stabbing pain in his back, radiating to the front like a dagger twisting cruelly in his heart. A heaviness in his chest like seawater flooding his lungs, his heart beating frantically, trying to keep him alive for a few more precious seconds. A whisper of hellfire in his ear, a voice warm with freshly spilled blood.

" _I told you to play the game."_

Their blood mixes as their lips meet, a cold smile against the gurgling rasp of his final breaths, the last beat of a faithful and broken heart.

_fin_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So to sum things up, happy ending: Eddy and Brett get together thanks to a terrible nightmare. Dark ending: Eddy kills Brett thanks to a terrible nightmare that somehow became real. A few different possibilities (although it really boils down to—it's a supernatural horror story, no logic needed):  
> 1\. Eddy was both victim and game master all along (like Oliver in their Jigsaw theme cover :D), and his POV in the first 2 chapters was all a lie.  
> 2\. Eddy became possessed by the game master at some point, causing him to turn against Brett.  
> 3\. They misinterpreted the rule "you play twenty-four hours nonstop or he dies." It was meant to be Eddy playing 24 hours to save Brett's life, but they did it the wrong way around, so Brett dies.  
> 4\. Eddy's getting revenge for that time when Brett killed him in the "Clair de lune" conspiracy theory video xD this is a joke guys
> 
> I have not seen any of the Saw movies, so all I know of it is from their reaction video :D 
> 
> Thank you for reading! If you liked it, please leave a comment :3 I'm thinking about writing some more in this fandom!

**Author's Note:**

> I'm the-cloud-whisperer on tumblr and the_cloud_whisperer on IG :) Hit me up if you want to be Twoset friends :3


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